Australia finally enjoyed a solid day in an Ashes Test on Thursday when having been put into bat on the opening day of the final match of the series at The Oval, they racked up a score of 287/3 when bad light brought a premature end to proceedings.
Although they had the better of the opening tussles they haven’t yet got themselves into a position where they are dominant in the match and England will know if they begin the second day well on Friday this match is still very much in the balance.
It will be a relief for Australia to have batted out a full day but they weren’t without their struggles and the batsmen came off on Thursday suggesting you never feel in on this wicket so a collapse of some sort on Friday would be no surprise and even though this wicket doesn’t have the hidden demons of the last two you get the feeling a run of wickets could fall quickly.
When England bat on Friday they will probably look at batting only once and we’ve seen in the last two matches they have that in them. A number of their batsmen are in good form and on what is likely to be the best conditions for batting on Friday and Saturday they will have the opportunity to go big.
Before all that Steve Smith and Adam Voges will resume unbeaten on Friday morning with the former needing 22 more runs for a second century of the series. The incumbent captain has batted beautifully on the opening day but England will have a new ball two deliveries into the second day.
Surprisingly England are now out to 10/1 to win the match which seems a little big to me given that Australia are only slightly ahead of the game if they are ahead of it at all. Motivation is a big thing in sport and I still think England have more of that in this match than the tourists.
I’m already on England to win the match so I’m not going in again but anyone yet to pull the trigger can do a lot worse than take that 10/1. At the very least England should trade shorter and you can cash out.
Looking ahead to Friday, England will have a new ball to use two balls into the day which could provide them with the platform to get stuck in. We’ve seen all series that when Steve Smith has been exposed to the new ball his technique has got him into all sorts of trouble and I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens again on Friday.
Smith is 2/1 not to get the 22 runs he needs to make a century and when he’s faced the new ball in this series so far he’s delivered scores of 33 and 33 in Cardiff and since then 7, 8, 6 and 5 in the Tests and a duck at Northampton last week. Not exactly convincing.
If the England bowlers get it right with the new ball on Friday then Smith may yet miss out on another ton given that he won’t have played himself in before the new ball arrives. At 2/1 him not getting a ton looks a good value bet.
Back S.Smith NOT to make 100 for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Bet365
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BTW! Thanks Kev, for the 3-2 Series-Outrightbet on Punterslounge. This gave a very nice profit! 😉
You’re welcome mate!